Over 4 lakh unsold flats across 9 cities in affordable segment: PropTiger

Real estate developers are sitting on 4.12 lakh unsold apartments priced up to Rs 45 lakh, despite improvement in demand for affordable homes from end-users, according to property brokerage firm PropTiger.com.

However, PropTiger CEO Dhruv Agarwala feels that unsold stocks in affordable housing segment will now get cleared at a fast pace with the government announcing an increase in the deduction limit on home loan interest to Rs 3.5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh earlier.

According to the data compiled by the brokerage firm, developers had total unsold inventories of 7,97,623 units at the end of June quarter across nine cities -- Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.

Out of this total unsold housing stocks, PropTiger said 4,12,930 units were in affordable segment (Rs 45 lakh and below price category).

"A low interest rate regime along with the measures announced in the Budget to push affordable housing would encourage homebuyers to invest actively in this category now," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO of Housing.com, PropTiger.com, Makaan.com and Fastfox.com.

He does not anticipate much improvement in new supply with developers focusing on completing existing projects and clearing stocks-in-hand.

"With these two factors at work, affordable housing inventory in India's key property markets is likely to decline significantly in the following quarters," Agarwala said.

As per the data, Mumbai had the maximum unsold affordable housing units at 1,39,984 units, followed by Pune at 98,378 units.

Ahmedabad had 41,791 unsold units of Rs 45 lakh and below, while Noida 35,811 unsold units, Kolkata 30,923 units, Gurugram 22,307 units, Bengaluru 20,146 units, Chennai 18,709 units and Hyderabad 4,881 units.

Singapore-based Elara Technologies Pte Ltd is the owner of Housing.com, PropTiger.com, Makaan.com. and FastFox.com. It provides digital real estate marketing and transactions services.